Roadblocks and Ethical Issues
In Riverbend City: Human Services Roles, you learned about a new task force that is addressing the issue of youth and teen homelessness in a Riverbend City neighborhood. In your opinion, what is the most serious roadblock the task force may encounter in addressing this issue successfully? What should the task force do to try to overcome this roadblock?
In addition, what is the most serious ethical issue that this task force may encounter? What can the task force do to address this ethical issue?
Riverbend City ® Activity
Human Services Roles
Introduction
Scene 1
Scene 2
Credits
Introduction
You are an intern at Riverbend Community Action, a Human Services organization that provides services for struggling individuals and families in the metropolis of Riverbend City. Your manager has asked you to represent your organization at a newly formed community task force. The purpose of this task force is to address a growing problem in the Ruby Lake neighborhood of Riverbend City: youth and teen homelessness.
Whenever a group takes on a complicated issue like youth and teen homelessness, it’s helpful to take a step back and consider some of the challenges the group might face. Are there ethical issues that might arise? Are there potential roadblocks that will make it difficult for the group to work effectively and to enact change? Anticipating these kinds of challenges early—in this case, after the first meeting of the
Ruby Lake Teen Homelessness Task Force
—can help a group plan effectively for success.
For these reasons, as an intern who is sitting on this task force, you will be asked to analyze potential roadblocks and ethical issues that this group might encounter.
Select Begin Activity to get started.
Scene 1
Email from April Nguyen
From: April Nguyen, Manager, Riverbend Community Action
Subject: Ruby Lake Teen Homelessness Task Force
Thank you so much for your willingness to meet with the newly formed Ruby Lake Teen Homelessness Task Force. As you know, there’s been an alarming spike in the rate of teen homelessness in the Ruby Lake neighborhood of Riverbend City.
As you know, this task force is new. In my mind, one of the most helpful things a group can do early on is to assess challenges they may face as they get to work—including ethical issues they may come across, and roadblocks they may encounter that may make it difficult for them to work effectively. Since you haven’t worked with anyone in this group before, you’re a “new set of eyes,” and therefore you’re in a good position to observe the group and anticipate some of these challenges. With that in mind, I would like for you to sit back and listen to what the group members have to say, and then report back to me about potential ethical issues and roadblocks that you anticipate may be a problem.
To help you get started, I’ve attached a Riverbend City Free Press article that provides information about the issue of teen homelessness in the Ruby Lake Neighborhood.
Thank you again for your eagerness to participate on the task force, and best of luck!
— April
Online Article
Out at Home: Youth Homelessness on the Rise in Ruby Lake
Written By: Laurie Boyette (lboyette@rcfpress.com)
Ashley Garcia, 15, loves theater. She’s been in school plays every year since her freshman year at Ruby Lake High School. She’s been practicing hard for her audition for the upcoming production of High School Musical. “I want to play Gabriella,” said Ashley. “That’s my dream.”
Does she have any other dreams?
“Well, yeah,” says Ashley. “I want my mom and me to live in our own apartment again.”
Ashley and her mother, Kristina Garcia, 32, have been living in the Helping Hands House—a homeless shelter—for the past three months. Prior to that, they were living at various relatives’ homes—and before that, in a vehicle.
And Ashley is by no means alone. According to Bruce Greenberg, Superintendent of the Riverbend City School District, homelessness among students in the district is up an estimated 20 percent from five years ago. In sections of city that serve poorer students, that percentage even is higher.
And in the Ruby Lake neighborhood, where Ashley lives? “We estimate that youth and teen homelessness is up by about 40 percent over the last five years,” said Greenberg. “There’s not a student or teacher in that district who doesn’t interact regularly with homeless students, whether they know it or not.”
“This is nothing less than a crisis,” added Greenberg.
So why are so many young people in the Ruby Lake neighborhood homeless? Ashley Garcia represents one category of homeless youth: those who are homeless along with their parents or other family members. “Homelessness in Ruby Lake has everything to do with neighborhood poverty,” explained Nathan Williams, job training director at the Ruby Lake One-Stop Center. “This neighborhood never recovered from the Great Recession, or from the exodus of manufacturing jobs that at one time were a mainstay in Ruby Lake.”
This is the situation that Kristina Garcia—Ashley’s mother—finds herself in. Last year, when the Schneider Paper Company closed its doors and moved operations to Bangladesh, Garcia lost her job as an assistant floor manager. Garcia, who dropped out of high school when she became pregnant with Ashley, is now working as a part-time cashier at the Chicken Hut.
“There’s no jobs in this part of town,” said Garcia. “Nothing that pays even close to what I was making. As a single mother, I used to be able to provide for me and my daughter without much help from anyone. Now, I can’t even keep a roof over our heads.”
Garcia has applied several times for a job training program at the One-Stop Center. Unfortunately, as Williams explained, funding for these programs have been cut drastically in recent years. “The city has chosen to invest in other kinds of employment programs,” said Williams. “Now, we’re only able to accept a fraction of our applicants. And, at this point, we’re only able to accept applicants who have a high school diploma or equivalent.”
However, youth with struggling families aren’t the only ones who lack a stable home. “There’s a truly alarming number of teenagers in this community who run away from home, or who have been thrown out,” said Corinne Ackley-Brown, a social worker at Ruby Lake High School.
The reasons for this are numerous. They include drug and alcohol abuse—including a growing number of cases of opiate abuse. In some cases, kids with addictions are leaving home; in other cases, they are fleeing drug and alcohol abuse in their homes. Other kids are fleeing physical or emotional abuse—or foster homes.
Another common reason for homelessness in Ruby Lake is teen pregnancy. “This neighborhood has had one of the highest teen pregnancy rates for years,” said Ackley-Brown. “Many of the students in this neighborhood come from traditional Catholic, Hispanic families. In many families—most families, in fact—families step in and support pregnant girls. But I’ve seen far too many cases where teen pregnancy results in a girl being on the street.”
In addition, according to Superintendent Greenberg, a growing number of students throughout the district are on the streets because they are gay or transgender. “These days, kids are increasingly open about their sexuality or gender identity,” said Greenberg. “That’s led to increased acceptance. We have Gay-Straight Alliance support groups in many of our high schools and even middle schools. But not every teenager has a family that supports LGBT kids, and sometimes this means that kids who don’t keep silent are on the streets.”
Alyssa Ashmore, the director of Washington Avenue Crisis Center for Youth, agrees. “I’ve never seen so many LGBT teens come through our doors as we have in recent years,” said Ashmore. “These teens often suffer from depression and anxiety, and are at high risk for suicide.”
According to Superintendent Greenberg, the school district is taking the issue of youth and teen homeless very seriously. “This is among our top priorities to address in the coming year,” said Greenberg. In the Ruby Lake neighborhood, the school plans to partner with the newly formed Ruby Lake Teen Homelessness Task Force.
“We have an obligation to our students that extends beyond the classroom,” said Greenberg. “When students don’t have their basic needs met—including the need to have a stable, safe home—they cannot live up to their potential as students.”
Scene 2
Ruby Lake Teen Homelessness Task Force
Read about each individual’s role within the task force.
Chelsea Jenkins
Crisis Intervention Counselor
Hi! I’m Chelsea Jenkins, and I work in a crisis intervention clinic with teens and their families. I’ve worked with many families in this neighborhood. My main role? Well, in my work, I focus on helping teens and their families deal with the trauma of homelessness. People don’t commonly think of homelessness in terms of trauma. But can you imagine what a 15-year old who suddenly doesn’t have a roof over her head is going through? Especially when that’s combined with other issues like addiction, or abuse, or somebody refusing to accept a teenager’s sexual orientation. I tend to focus on the immediate impact of homelessness–the impact it has on the immediate functioning of the child and her family. I’m glad to have the opportunity to be on this task force, in part because I get the opportunity to look at strategies for addressing the homeless problem on a more holistic level–as opposed to just dealing with the effects of homelessness on individuals.
So what kinds of roadblocks do I think this task force will face? Well, resources and finances are always an issue. And I mean always! There are a lot of ways we can help homeless kids–crisis intervention therapy, group homes, advocacy, addiction treatment, prevention programs. All of that costs money. Frankly, in a poor minority neighborhood like this one, it can be a struggle to persuade government and nonprofit groups that kids in Ruby Lake should be a high priority. Sad, but true. There’s also the issue of resource availability. We just don’t have enough places where homeless families and teens can go. That’s especially true for LGBT teens. Some of them go to the Washington Avenue Crisis Center for Youth–but they can’t accommodate everyone. And there’s not a facility in Riverbend City that specifically serves homeless LGBT kids.
And what kinds of ethical issues do I think will come up? Well, when you’re talking about youth, confidentiality issues are always a concern. When a young person tells me, “Don’t tell anyone,” what do I do? There are so many factors. Is the teen suicidal, or engaging in self-harm? Is addiction involved? Or sexual abuse? Or abuse or neglect? If I violate confidentiality, will that put the teen in danger? There can be ethical issues with reporting things I hear, and with not reporting. Plus, there are issues related to both minor confidentiality and the need for parental consent. Even in cases where a parent has thrown a kid out, they often have a legal say in many aspects of a child’s life.
Mark Tucker
Group Home Supervisor
I’m Mark Tucker. I’m a supervisor at Ruby Lake Youth Oasis. We’re kind of a new facility—four years old—and we’re small. We can only serve 12 kids at once, maximum. Our goal is to provide emergency services for at-risk youth—safety, shelter, food, emotional support, access to medical and mental health services, those kinds of things. We work with social service agencies to try to move kids out of homelessness and into more stable situations. We see all different kinds of kids in our facility—pregnant girls, new moms, kids with addiction problems….and we’ve had a lot of LGBT youth lately, especially transgender kids. A lot of the kids are homeless because they’re fleeing physical or sexual abuse, or the addiction of a parent or guardian. And sometimes kids are just told to leave because their parents can’t afford to raise them.
I’m glad to see that there’s a task force to address the issue of homelessness in this neighborhood, because I can tell you firsthand what a crisis this is! You asked about what roadblocks we might face in helping these kids? I think the biggest one is just that we need more facilities and more boots on the ground to help these kids. We have to deal with the public perception that teen homelessness isn’t a serious problem. Most people have absolutely no idea how rough it is out there for homeless kids. Over a third of homeless teens engage in survival sex—girls and boys—and many teens are lured into prostitution very quickly after leaving home. Homeless teens are at very high risk for sexual assault and human trafficking, and for contracting HIV. On top of that, almost half of homeless teens have mental health problems, and almost a third of homeless youth have attempted suicide. The majority of these kids have experienced serious trauma, like physical and sexual abuse, and serious poverty and food insecurity. I can’t emphasize enough the degree to which this is an at-risk population–and we do not have the resources to help them all.
You also asked about ethical issues we might face. Well, one issue that’s hard to manage is the line between building trust and maintaining boundaries. We’re not there to be friends with these kids. But on the other hand, we have to get them to trust us. So people who work with homeless teens need good training—which is another thing we lack resources to do well. The turnover at group homes for teens is very high. It’s hard work, it doesn’t pay well, and you run into challenging ethical issues all the time.
Jason De La Cruz
Foster Care Coordinator
I’m Jason De La Cruz. I’m a foster care coordinator. My work touches on the issue of homelessness in a number of ways. First, we have a population of youth who, for a variety of reasons, leave the foster system and become emancipated minors. More often than not, these individuals lack the means to support themselves and a reliable support system. And on top of that, the reasons why they became emancipated usually are traumatic, which means these kids deal with mental health problems. These are all reasons why emancipated kids become homeless kids.
A second population I work with are youth in the foster system who run away or are thrown out by care providers. When this happens, this represents a catastrophic breakdown of what the foster care system is supposed to provide.
In addition, we do what we can to prevent homelessness in young adults who age out of the foster system. The link between foster care experience and homelessness is shocking–about 50 percent of the homeless population in the United States has spent time in foster care, and up to half of kids who age out of the foster system become homeless within 18 months.
What roadblocks might we face when it comes to helping homeless teens? Wow, that’s a complicated question. The biggest obstacles we face are systemic. Kids are homeless because of societal problems like poverty, addiction, abuse, and homophobia. Foster kids become homeless for all these reasons. And on top of that, there’s a chronic lack of reliable foster families for older children and children of color. Everything we do to help homeless teens and to prevent kids from becoming homeless feels like a Band-Aid to me. Sure, we can put resources into more group homes and mental health care and all of those things. It’s not like doing those things won’t make a difference. But the things that really need to change are poverty and income inequality, and the drug problem, and racism.
You also asked what kinds of ethical issues we might face. In foster care, we face ethical quandaries all the time that relate to homelessness. We often deal with the question of reunification with parents. If we can help make this happen successfully, this may decrease the chance a child will wind up homeless. But what if there’s a history of abuse, or drug abuse? What if a family refuses to accept the gender identity of a transgender child? Is that child better off at home, even if there’s a risk of homelessness if you keep that child in foster care?
Elizabeth Fine
Guidance Counselor
I’ve been a guidance counselor at Ruby Lake High School for the past seven years. I can definitely tell you that I’ve seen an increase in the number of homeless kids lately. Unlike the other people on this task force, the majority of the homeless teens I see are part of homeless families. Most of them aren’t on the streets—although some are, or they are for a period of time. They’re couch surfing with families and friends, or living in shelters, or living in short-term housing. Lots of transitional housing situations. There are also an awful lot of kids in the school who struggle with housing or food insecurity, and who may be in danger of becoming homeless–and we don’t always know about these kids. Obviously, kids who aren’t getting their basic needs met have an incredibly difficult time focusing on their education—and kids who don’t get a good education are in danger of become homeless later on, and continuing the cycle.
One of the roadblocks we face in helping these teens—well, with housing insecurity, we may not be working with these kids for a long period of time. I can direct teens and their families to resources. But some of these kids are in our school for such a short period of time that we aren’t able to build up the trust we need with them. And as you can imagine, many of these kids don’t have the best attendance records. They may not be able to get to school because of transportation issues, or they may be working some kind of part-time job to help out their families. Or they turn 16 and they just drop out because they’re more concerned with survival than with education. All of these are roadblocks that make it difficult for us to help these kids and their families.
Another roadblock we face involves the economy of this neighborhood. Many, many families are struggling. Even in the seven years since I’ve been here, I’ve seen manufacturing jobs leave this neighborhood. Obviously this is a more systemic issue, and I don’t know if this task force can do anything about that–but that is most certainly a roadblock we’re going to face in trying to help homeless youth in the community. It’s so hard for their families to get on their feet.
We also work with a lot of pregnant girls at Ruby Lake High School. In some cases, pregnancy leads to homelessness. And we have some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the city in this neighborhood. If we see that there’s the possibility that a girl could lose her home, we intervene by contacting agencies like Child Protective Services. We can also get girls in contact with emergency housing in some cases. But the system is so stretched, and there’s just not enough space in emergency housing.
Another group of kids we see who may be in danger of becoming homeless are LGBT kids. A lot of schools in this district have Gay Straight Alliances and other support groups, and that can be a lifeline for these kids. But there are some very conservative attitudes in this community about that sort of thing, so there’s no LGBT support group in this school. In my mind, these kinds of attitudes are one of the roadblocks we have to deal with. For that matter, these attitudes have also contributed to the poor quality of sex education we have in this school–which contributes to the teen pregnancy problem.
You asked about ethical issues to consider? Well, I meet with minors all day, and they often tell me things that are very alarming. I’m sometimes faced with the dilemma of whether or not I need to break a kid’s trust and report a situation to authorities. If a kid tells me her mother’s been doing something illegal so they can afford their rent, what do I do?
Reflection Questions
What do you think is the most challenging roadblock to helping homeless youth in the Ruby Lake neighborhood? What are some ways the task force might address this roadblock?
Your response:
This question has not been answered yet.
What do you think is the most challenging ethical issue that the task force might face when addressing the issue of homeless youth? How might they address this issue?
Your response:
This question has not been answered yet.
If you were on this task force, what issue involving homeless youth would you be most compelled to address? Explain why.
Your response:
This question has not been answered yet.
Conclusion
As you’ve seen, the various stakeholders involved in a project have very distinct needs when it comes to the information they will need over the course of the project.
As you prepare your stakeholder registry, consider what information you will need in order to create a communications plan that will help you meet the stakeholder expectations and needs.
When you return to the courseroom, you will analyze these scenarios in a discussion question.
Credits
Subject Matter Expert:
William Ross
Interactive Design:
Alyssa Jensen
Interactive Developer:
Dre Allen, Matt Taylor
Instructional Design:
Judi Gronseth
Media Instructional Design:
Naomi Rockler Gladen
Project Management:
Marc Ashmore, Andrea Thompson
Back to top
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License